Travel insurance - can they do this?

Aiadi

My parents recently went on holiday to Jordan and the day before they went they purchased travel insurance for £65 from Norwich Union over the telephone, paid by credit card. On their return they opened the letter from Norwich Union with almost every detail of the insurance wrong-
1. The names were misspelt
2. The area was Europe instead of Jordan
3. The dates were wrong

So my parents had been on holiday with travel insurance with all the important details wrong- needless to say they were quite distressed about this!

I rang up Norwich Union with the intention of getting a refund and they told me that if my parents had needed to claim on the insurance they (Norwich Union) would have checked the recording of my parents original phone call to purchase the insurance and so would have gone with the details on that conversation recording. They said that this was common practise and that they therefore would not refund the cost.They said they would do this and find out what went wrong and get back to us (I doubt they will) - can they do this?

Savvy_Sue

I don't think NU are being unreasonable in refusing a refund, possibly an apology but if it had come to a claim then NU would have had to check the tape and presumably your parents would be vindicated.

IMO it was a bit rash to go away with nothing in writing! If your parents had needed to claim what proof did they have of their insurance cover?

Call me a scaredy cat, but I take out insurance either over the internet where I can print off policy there and then, or in time to get the policy document by post before we travel. Earlier this year I got in a bit of a panic because I'd paid for cover but hadn't had the confirmation email, took me a while to realise I needed to access a different email address, panic over.

Aiadi

Savvy_Sue wrote:

IMO it was a bit rash to go away with nothing in writing! If your parents had needed to claim what proof did they have of their insurance cover?

It was a last minute trip so there wasn't time to hang around for the papers- plus NU gave them a reference number which they said would be enough in the event of needing to claim.